Plain & simple! Mature's 12/12 from seed rolling harvest grow.

[maturesmoker]

Had a short break from the forum but thought I would post this diary in the CFL section here once again. Its very basic and simple but based on 13 years of growing experience and experimentation. Here's the spec, like I said I keep it very simple:

• A converted solid pine cabinet with removable door, dimensions to follow!
• 320watts of CFLs, comprising 120 watts of 6400k 'blue' plus 200watts of 2700k.
• Constant 12/12 light cycle from germination.
• Multi-strain, all seeds feminised, currently: Master Kush, Snow White, Swiss Cheese, Northern Lights & Lemon Skunk (the latter just germinating now)
• Bio Bizz nutrients (grow and bloom)

My plants are grown in very small containers (1litre soil) with outer pots below where the roots dangle in an airspace and I feed directly to those roots. I go for maximum growth in the first 3 weeks before these generally show pre flowers. Yields are small averaging 14 to 21 grams dry, but turnover of different strains makes up for this.

I'll start with a few pics showing current situation. I have at the moment:

A 'Swiss Cheese' at 11 weeks from seed. ( pics 2 close up, and 3)

A 'Snow White' at 12 weeks. (pic. 5)

A Northern Lights at 21 days from seed.
A Swiss Cheese at 21 days.
A Master Kush at 21 days.
You can see the above 3 plants in the group shot (pic 4) below. All have already shown first preflowers (days 18 & 19) and have well established roots in the lower pots.

I'm happy to answer any questions, but please no posts telling me to get myself a HPS (done that!) or to veg my plants etc..... cheers )

 

[maturesmoker]

Thought this may be interesting to some, 3 images showing days 5 to 21 and development of Swiss Cheese, Master Kush & Northern Lights. Pre-flowers showed at days 18 & 19, last pic taken on day 21 yesterday. Just to show that plants grown on a constant 12/12 cycle from seed can still put down some good roots before they flower.

7th February (5 days old)
11th February.
19th February
23rd february. (21 days old)

Nothing but plain PH'd water for these plants so far. I start to feed lightly in week 4.

 

[DumpsterKeeper]

When you say 14-21 grams dry, do you mean per plant or total across several plants?

I'm asking because I'm not sure if less than an ounce per harvest would really be worth it. Flowering usually takes 50-65 days (we'll just say 2 months on average) and I like to veg for 30 days so I wouldn't want to sacrifice a big yield for 1/3 less growing time.

 

[bossm]

im wondering the same but i thing he is talking about from all the plants together i doubt he will be able to pull out over 10 dry out of each but nive fucking grow how big is your box and what about the tempeture what is it staying at

 

[maturesmoker]

Whole point of this method is constant turnover of plants producing smallish yields, averaging 14 to 21 grams fully dry per plant. Even if the average is closer to 14g then that's my smoke for a month and that is both my starting point and my bottom line The roots hang out of the bottom of those inner pots and form a mass in the airspace between the outer pots and I water/ feed daily direct to the roots.

As for yield, well lets put it this way, his method has kept me smoking daily for 2.5 years so I have no complaints. Been doing this a long time, lost my 20 plant HPS grow to the police 3 years ago so I now do the best I can in a small space just in case. I'll get more pics as the thread develops.

Some previous examples.
Here is a Snow White at 11 weeks, left to grow a single cola. She fattened up a bit more before harvest but you get my point, I grow small plants in a small space. Also a Master Kush in mid flowering and a typical root-shot.

bossm, watch those 3 young plants go, if I don't pull over 14g from each one I'll give it all up and eat my hat

Lemon Skunk coming next, followed by Bubba Kush and Bubbleicious, this is all about fast turnover.

Cheers,
CV.

 

[cannabisguru]

I've got a snow white going currently. Yours really took 12 weeks!?!?! Sheeesh. Guess its going to be a long haul with that lady. Mine just showed sex (started flowering) 6 days ago.. and once she started flowering, she took off like nobodies business man. I mean, SHOOOOM! I didn't think she would take off that fast.. but she sure did.

Anyhow, you have any tips/advice for growing this strain? I'm thinking about topping her.. since she's still in the first week of flowering. She's got 6 full nodes (branch sets) as of today.. with the 7th node developing and starting to push out and emerge from the main stem... so I could go ahead and top her.. which like I said, I may end up doing because I have a feeling she's going to be a tall woman.. and my vertical height space is limited to 5'ft.

Yeah, if you have any advice for me.. for that strain please let me know.

thanks.

Yours looks lovely btw!! Nice!

peace

 

[cannabisguru]

I'm Subbed for this one.

 

[maturesmoker]

I've got a snow white going currently. Yours really took 12 weeks!?!?! Sheeesh. Guess its going to be a long haul with that lady. Mine just showed sex (started flowering) 6 days ago.. and once she started flowering, she took off like nobodies business man. I mean, SHOOOOM! I didn't think she would take off that fast.. but she sure did.

Anyhow, you have any tips/advice for growing this strain? I'm thinking about topping her.. since she's still in the first week of flowering. She's got 6 full nodes (branch sets) as of today.. with the 7th node developing and starting to push out and emerge from the main stem... so I could go ahead and top her.. which like I said, I may end up doing because I have a feeling she's going to be a tall woman.. and my vertical height space is limited to 5'ft.

Yeah, if you have any advice for me.. for that strain please let me know.

thanks.

Hello cannabisguru, cheers for looking in here. Snow White is a good solid strain. Don't forget I don't veg my plants at all, I grow on 12/12 cycle from the day the seeds crack so 12/13 weeks start to finish for me. A mate grew SW more conventionally with 4 weeks veg and he did very well on yield, I recall his flowering period from the switch was around 10 weeks total but the SW really gains density in those last 2 weeks, even under CFL's. Well worth the wait though, I actually find it slightly too 'heady' for me but I like to keep one in my cab simply because its so reliable.
All he best with yours.
CV.

 

[bossm]

im subbed man....i never seen that little pot setup before so its soil in one pot and that and that 3 inch pot under the other pot is nothing but air so the roots grow out the cup and into the other small pot on the bottom????????thats pretty sick i only have enough room for my one gom right now but im gonna try something like that next grow in a month or 2.....but do you still water from the top??????and what do you mean you directly feed your plant?????do you mist the roots????come on give me more info lol but anyway yea im gonna be watching your grow good luckmaturesmoker

 

[zamzia]

So what are the dimensions of the cab? How did you get busted? i.e. what gave you away?

 

[Smokey11]

Looking good!! Subb'd +rep

 

[xdrgreenthumbx]

AMAZING! This is exactly what I'm trying to replicate with some bagseed and a custom cab I built myself. One quick question...how do you go about feeding directly to the roots? I feel there would be ZERO room for error sort of like a hydro setup? Or am I missing something?

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/391998-experiment-12-12-seed-cfl.html <---if ya wanna check out my little thing, more updates coming soon!

 

[maturesmoker]

AMAZING! This is exactly what I'm trying to replicate with some bagseed and a custom cab I built myself. One quick question...how do you go about feeding directly to the roots? I feel there would be ZERO room for error sort of like a hydro setup? Or am I missing something?

Thanks for the comments and the questions, I'll try to work through them now

Firstly I should just say that I'm not saying this method is how YOU should grow your weed, I'm just sharing my experience in the hope that some might find it useful, particularly those just getting into this hobby of ours. It seems to me that some new growers massively overcomplicate things resulting in early leaf damage and stunted growth. Overwatering/overfeeding early on should be avoided and this 'small pot' method actually makes it very easy to control moisture around the roots and its almost impossible to overwater

OK, so here's the cab and plants this morning. If you look at the 2 biggest of the 23 day old plants in the pic you can see that they are just slightly hanging their leaf? I remove the outer pot and place the back of my hand on the roots and can immediately feel that they are dry so I add about an inch of water to the outer pot and let them suck it straight up, its normally gone within an hour. The plant will perk straight back up again. The Northern Lights I can tell requires a little less water as I can still feel some moisture on the back of my hand. Remember, this is still essentially a soil grow so that's my PH buffer, they are still drawing from the soil and I am of course using 'soil' nutrients, yet it has some elements of 'passive hydro' in that I can add water every 24hours and they then quickly dry out again, so for most of that period the outer pot airspace is dry.

Feeding.
You can see the 2 bottles of solution made up? One contains a low strength BioBizz 'Grow' solution, water PH'd down to 6.2 using just 2 drops of 'PH Down'...simple! I dont feed ANYTHING for the first 3 weeks though.
Once flowering has set in I switch to the second bottle which contains a stronger solution mixture of 'Grow' & 'Bloom'. Bio Bizz is of course Organic. I add a touch of mollasses later in flowering, just a pinch to the 2ltr feed bottles.

When the top soil dries out completely I give a good flush through (from the top) and let the run off escape to clear any build up in the pot, maybe once a week max. I then resume bottom watering again.

Hope this has answered most questions so far? Oh yes, the dimensions of the cab are: 18" wide x 14 "deep x 24" tall. I'll post some construction shots later.

So here's the pics I took at watering this morning. The plant in bud is a Swiss Cheese at 11 weeks, you can see the buds bulking up and begining to foxtail but she has a good 3 weeks to finish yet, I hope the close up shows the trich formation on her when enlarged?

if anyone wants to trial this method I'll be glad to help, you need a tight fitting outer pot and just drill lots of large holes in the bottom of the inner pot. You want an airspace for the roots of about an inch or so. I have become convinced that early bottom watering encourages those roots to grow and dig down for moisture, this in turn gives rapid growth in the first 3 weeks from seed.

Enough of my rambling, the pics.

 

[xdrgreenthumbx]

Very nice, indeed. I think I might try this my next time out! I'm sure the air pruning of the roots helps with rapid growth as well.

Thanks again for the info!

 

[gstay]

This is great!. I have a couple clones rooting in 2l bottles with bottom drainage. I think after they root I'll just keep them in there and do this.
Thanks for the idea!

 

[medicalgrowman]

How did you get busted?

 

[DumpsterKeeper]

I gotta say, though the yields may be smaller, I don't see why I shouldn't throw two new seeds into my tent if I already got some plants in flower. Subbed. Happy growing!

 

[MrHappyBuds]

Hey Maturesmoker,

This journal looks like a lot of fun man, subbed. I'm about to start my first grow and I was wanting to go the 600w HPS route and then I read your story and you've inspired me. Your setup is so smart man, I love it. I was about to make my $1,500 order for equipment and I kept thinking how can I not draw attention to my self with all this stuff. I like your efficient (in power and space) setup! Your girls look amazing man. I know you're upset about getting busted but I'm just glad they didn't put you in jail. If you don't mind I have a few questions...

As I understand you have 18 x 14 x 24 cab with 5 plants. 2 are in late flowering and 3 in very early flowering. What is the size requirement of your plants at week 12 or 13? Can you start flowering immediately with any plant? I was thinking I would do this with clones since the idea of getting getting seeds shipped is sketchy to me.

Thanks a lot man! Best of luck to you. It's my dream that every person that smokes weed has a grow like this.

 

[theoldmerchant]

That single cola is a sight to see. Standing tall and pretty.

 

[MrHappyBuds]

Where did you go man?